Air
john boyne
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First published in Great Britain in 2025 by Doubleday an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © John Boyne 2025
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Inan ideal world, I would be spending my fortieth birthday in a bar overlooking Bondi Beach, a beer in my left hand, a woman I love by my right, while friends tease me about my receding hairline. Instead, I’m standing near Gate 10 in Sydney Airport, preparing for twenty hours in the air with only a recalcitrant teenage boy for company. But who among us lives in an ideal world?
Granted, it’s early in the morning, but I’m disproportionately irritated when I emerge from the gents to find that Emmet is not seated where I left him, his bright yellow backpack abandoned on a chair next to my own. I look around, my gaze darting between sleepy-eyed passengers, cleaning staff and airline crew, all making their way through the concourse.
It’s not the first time I’ve lost my son. When he was five, I let go of his hand for a moment in David Jones on Castlereagh Street and it was almost thirty minutes before I found him again, sitting in a corner of kitchenware, with the patience of an obedient puppy, his cheeks streaked with tears but hopeful that his master will return for him sooner or later. Most parents are at their most protective when their children are infants, but I’m
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the opposite, having become increasingly vigilant since he turned fourteen a few months ago. I can’t help myself. I know the dangers out there for boys his age.
A woman stops before me, probably noticing the uneasy expression on my face.
‘Are you all right?’ she asks.
‘It’s my son,’ I tell her. ‘I told him to wait for me but—’
‘I thought it was something like that. Look, I’m not on duty, I’m catching a flight, but I’m a police officer and can help if you like. When did you last see him?’
‘Just a few minutes ago. I went to the bathroom and—’
‘How old is he?’
When I tell her, she studies me with a mixture of incredulity and pity.
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ she says. ‘I thought you meant a toddler. He’ll be around here somewhere. You can’t lose teenagers, as much as we might want to sometimes.’
A moment later he appears from behind me. He must have followed me into the bathroom and used one of the cubicles.
‘What?’ he asks when I glare at him.
‘This is him?’ the woman asks, and I nod.
‘Yes.’
‘Then I’ll leave you to it,’ she says, walking away.
‘I didn’t know where you were,’ I tell him when she’s out of earshot.
‘I needed to go,’ he says slowly, as if speaking to someone of limited intelligence, a tone he’s increasingly adopted with me in recent times.
‘I asked you to wait with the bags.’
He rolls his eyes. If this gesture was ever to become an Olympic sport, he’d be Australia’s number-one hope.
‘Can I get some chocolate?’ he asks. ‘I didn’t have any breakfast.’
‘You said you weren’t hungry.’
‘Because you got me out of bed at three in the morning. Of course I wasn’t hungry.’
I made sure we had everything packed by yesterday afternoon so there would be nothing for either of us to do but take quick showers when our alarms went off, but the taxi still picked us up from North Bondi at three thirty. Neither of us uttered a word on the way to the airport, Emmet wearing completely superfluous sunglasses along with the AirPods that have become my mortal enemy. But it’s important not to get the day off to a bad start. We’re going to be in each other’s company for an extended period and if we’re going to survive this trip without killing each other, then it’s down to me, as the adult, to adapt to my son’s mood swings.
‘An apple might be better,’ I suggest, knowing exactly how this will be received. ‘Or maybe we could find some ham-and-cheese croissants.’
‘Nah. Chocolate. I need some for the plane too.’
‘Fine,’ I say, leading him towards a Relay, where he loses himself before a wall of processed sugar. He’s always had a sweet tooth but never seems to put a pound on. If I ate half the trash that he does, they’d have to wheel me home. I watch him from behind, his bare legs bronzed and slender from spending so much time at the beach, and recall when my own body was as slim and athletic as
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his. I’m still pretty fit, for my age, even if the belt buckle is starting to loosen by a notch. I run and I surf, although Damian – Emmet’s closest friend – recently said that what I do isn’t surfing at all, it’s controlled drowning, which set them both off in near hysterics of laughter. That said, Emmet isn’t as tall as I was at that age and, at only five foot seven, remains shorter than most of his friends. Although he’d never articulate it, I suspect he’s hoping for a growth spurt soon. He recently bought some dumbbells, trying to add some muscle to his lean frame, and he’s started buying enormous tubs of protein powder that he’s adding to his morning milkshakes.
I make my way towards the magazines, where I pick up a copy of GQ, a crossword book and the Sydney Morning Herald, scanning the headlines quickly. Turning away, my eyes land on a table holding a selection of the latest fiction and, at its centre, is a pile of the new novel by Furia Flyte. A miniature cardboard cut-out of the author is propped up, showing her with her head turned coquettishly to the left, an enigmatic smile on her face. She’s dressed entirely in white, which only accentuates the blackness of her skin, and her arms are wrapped around her body. Something in the pose seems a little strained, as if she’s uncomfortable connecting her beauty to her work but has been convinced to do so.
‘It only happens with women,’ she told me once, when I quizzed her about the machinations of the publishing industry.
‘Maybe because all the men are ugly,’ I suggested, and she shook her head, listing four or five male novelists
who she considered handsome, none of whom I had ever heard of but who I looked up online afterwards to see what they wore, how they styled their hair, how they presented themselves to the world, looking for tips as to how to model myself on them so that she might fall for me as I fell for her. Studying their author pictures, and the pained expressions on their faces as they stared into the middle distance, looking for all the world as if someone had asked them to explain Fermat’s Last Theorem, they seemed more constipated than anything else.
Being confronted by her image now, however, feels like a punch to the guts, a complicated blend of lingering desire and anger. Since its publication, I’ve done all I can to avoid Furia’s book – her fourth – which hasn’t been easy, as it’s been heavily promoted. Her picture has appeared on the front page of weekend supplements and, driving into work, I’ve occasionally been forced to turn off the radio when she’s been announced as a guest. I haven’t even set foot in a Dymocks store since Christmas for fear of being confronted by it and, while I’ve never been a big reader, I usually have a thriller on the go. But some masochistic urge forces me to pick it up now and read the blurb on the back. I already know the basic story, which concerns the relationship between an indigenous female drover in nineteenth-century Western Australia, a travelling magician and the magician’s wife, and I grit my teeth as I read the synopsis. I can’t bring myself to turn to the dedication or acknowledgements pages so return it to the pile. Just as I do, a woman’s hand reaches out to lift it.
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‘You haven’t lost him again, I hope?’ she asks, and I realize it’s the policewoman from earlier.
‘No,’ I say, nodding across the shop, but Emmet’s pulled another disappearing trick, causing me a fresh burst of irritation. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ I mutter.
‘Perhaps you should keep him on a leash.’
‘It would make life a lot easier.’
‘I’m just teasing,’ she says. ‘I have one of them at home myself. A teenager, I mean, not a leash. So I know what they’re like. Bloody nightmare, most of the time. Sweetest kid on the planet till puberty hit and then, bang, Hannibal Lecter without the charm. I’ve basically decided to stay out of his way until he turns twenty. Maybe twenty-five.’
Looking around, I discover him standing before a display of neck cushions. He’s placed one around his neck and I know that he’s going to ask me to buy it for him. Sure enough, he trots my way, holding it out like a peace offering, one that I’m expected to pay for.
‘Dad—’ he says, but I cut him off. There’s no way I’m spending eighty dollars on something so pointless.
‘No,’ I say.
‘But—’
‘Emmet, no. There’ll be plenty of pillows on the plane. Those things aren’t even comfortable. They just look like they are.’
He glances towards the woman and, perhaps because she’s present, decides not to make a fuss. He notices the book she’s holding, however, and an opportunity for payback presents itself.
‘You should buy that,’ he tells her. ‘It got great reviews. Well researched. Unreliable narrator. Literally everyone is reading it.’
‘Literally everyone isn’t,’ I say, making inverted comma symbols in the air, but he saunters away without catching my eye, a self-satisfied smirk spreading across his face as he returns the cushion to where he found it.
‘He doesn’t seem that bad,’ she says, turning to me, but I say nothing. It’s hard not to admire my son’s ability to offer a fuck you without actually saying the words.
‘No, he’s a total charmer,’ I reply, laughing a little to myself.
Over the Tannoy, I hear an announcement that our flight will begin boarding shortly and make my way towards the till, paying for more chocolate and gelatinous sweets than any human being should consume in a month.
‘And these,’ says Emmet, appearing by my side now and throwing in a party-size bag of Honey Soy Chicken crisps, enough to feed a family of four.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ I say. ‘You do know there’ll be food on the plane, right?’
‘It’s always smart to bring your own supplies.’
It’s simpler just to buy what he wants. After all, I’m tired. I’m anxious. I’m undertaking a journey that might prove to be an enormous mistake. And yet, despite my early-morning crankiness, as we head towards the gate I feel a desperate desire to pull my son into an embrace, to press his body against my own and explain to him how important the next few days will be for both of us. I can’t, of course. If I even tried to touch him, he’d push
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me away in mortification. And this from a boy who once loved nothing more than cuddling up to me while we watched Pixar movies on a Saturday evening; one who would often crawl into my bed in the middle of the night until he was nine or ten, lying in the empty space next to me while he fell back asleep.
The truth is, he wouldn’t even be here now if he’d had any choice in the matter, but he’s still at an age where I have some semblance of authority over him. He wanted to stay home alone, which was an absolute non-starter, then tried to persuade me to allow him to bunk with Damian while I was gone. Another no.
So he’s here. But under sufferance.
One final drama before we board.
A security guard is standing by the seats we were occupying earlier, staring at our backpacks. For all the fuss I created about Emmet remaining with them, they slipped my mind when we went to the store. The guard, who looks as if he should be studying for his HSC , not in fulltime employment, turns to me, and my first thought is that I could help him with his acne if he asked. I’m not a dermatologist, I’m a child psychologist, but I remember enough from my days in medical school to know exactly the treatment that would sort his problem out.
‘Are these your bags, sir?’ he asks.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Sorry. I went to the bathroom and then my son wanted something from Relay. I should have thought.’
The boy glances at Emmet.
‘Is this your father?’ he asks.
‘I’ve never seen this man before in my life,’ says Emmet, and I roll my eyes.
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ I say.
‘He just came over and started talking to me and—’ ‘Emmet, shut up.’
The guard looks from one of us to the other. He may be young, but surely he can see the resemblance between us.
‘Fine, he’s my dad,’ says Emmet, chuckling a little, which at least makes me smile. I like to hear him laugh.
‘Can I see your passports?’ asks the guard, and I take them from my back pocket and hand them across. He takes an eternity to compare the names and photos to us and I’m this close to asking him whether there’s a problem, but restrain myself, knowing there are few places in the world worse than an airport to create any sort of row. One false move and that’s it, you’re not only off the plane, you’re on a no-fly list for life.
‘You know you shouldn’t leave bags alone like this?’ he asks eventually. ‘They’re a security risk.’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘Sorry. I’m barely awake.’
‘Do you mind if I take a look inside them?’
He asks the question politely enough and I want to say yes, I do mind actually, but if I do, he’ll probably summon a colleague and, before I know it, both Emmet and I will be taken to private rooms to be interviewed separately. Thirty minutes later, our plane will be taxiing down the runway while we’re left behind. And we simply cannot miss this flight.
‘I don’t mind at all,’ I say, a fake smile plastered across
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my face, and he studies me for a moment before unzipping my rucksack. There’s not much in there. My laptop. A print- out of a paper I’m writing for a medical journal. A Lee Child novel. Some breath mints and hand sanitizers. My irritation rises again, however, when he reaches for Emmet’s bag. This feels like more of an intrusion – I don’t like him invading my son’s privacy – but, thankfully, his belongings are even less threatening than my own.
‘Just be aware next time,’ he says, standing up to his full height now. ‘When bags are just slung around the place, they’re a security risk.’
‘That’s what I told my dad,’ says Emmet. ‘But he never listens.’
‘And I’ll just check your boarding passes,’ he says then, and it takes all my strength not to tell him to go fuck himself, but the first-class passengers are starting to board now so I have no choice but to unlock my phone and open the onscreen wallet.
‘Aaron Umber,’ he says, reading my name. ‘And Emmet Umber,’ he adds, swiping across. They’re perfectly in order so, somewhat reluctantly, he hands them back. ‘Have a safe flight,’ he adds in a tone so severe that it comes across more like an order than a pleasantry. As if he’ll return to charge us with some crime if we don’t.
‘Thank you,’ I say, making my way towards the boarding gate, where the woman behind the desk is now summoning business-class passengers forward.
‘Sir,’ says the guard before I can get more than six steps away from him, and I turn around.
‘What?’ I ask, raising my voice in frustration. Honestly, at this point I’ve had enough, and my temper is rising. I keep some Valium at home for emergencies and threw a few in my suitcase in case the week ahead proves more difficult than expected. I should have added one in my backpack. ‘For heaven’s sake, what is it now?’
‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’
I frown, uncertain what he means, then realize that Emmet has returned to the very seat where I originally left him. He’s put his AirPods in again and probably isn’t even thinking about the time. I bark his name and he jumps up, obedient for once, and follows me. I feel a sense of relief when both our boarding passes scan at the desk without further incident.
As we make our way along the gangway towards the plane itself, it occurs to me that he hasn’t wished me a happy birthday yet.
